What tv shows, video games, other comics, etc inspire you, or that you borrow/steal ideas from =P

The shows that either inspire me or give me things to steal are
Star Trek
Dragon Ball Z
Ranma 1/2
TMNTurtles
Day Break
Heroes
Quantum Leap
X Files
Law & Order Criminal Intent/SVU
House
Avatar
Wrestling 96-2002

You should see some alien and predator in some of my alien designs.

Video games inspire me in design a bit.
Tekken, Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, and Mega Man designs have inspired some features in a few of my characters. For example Fenny's brown jacket came from Michelle Chang's and has been tweaked over the years.

Fenny and Sally were based loosely on Asuka and Rei from Neon Genesis Evengelion which I still have yet to watch =P Back in 95 there were all sorts of posters for sale for it and DBZ in game magazines, some characters that appear later have DBZ features because of those poster adds.

Now that I have watched DBZ years down the line I am a bit leary of that, but oh well :P

Avatar has recently highly inspired me for how I wish to set up my story telling. Instead of 1 long winding story like DBZ and many anime it has a story that is long but each episode is a story within the bigger story that generally leaves you fulfilled at the end while still furthering the larger story it is a part of.

There are many other things but no reason to go on for ever =D

I don't "steal" any ideas/plots/etc., but inspiration for style, humor, "mood," and story telling style, I am inspired by some of this stuff...

TV/manga
~Detective Conan
~Lupin III
~humor from anime like Tenchi Muyo, Trigun, and Get Backers
~old sitcoms, especially ones like Cheers and Wings (not the type of sitcoms with kids in them)

Books
~Sherlock Holmes
~Agatha Christie
~Shakespeare
~Random non-fiction stuff, especially news stories about crime (my comic has a criminal flavor)

Video Games
~Maybe Skies of Arcadia I loved everything about that game, so it might influence me, especially concerning characters and humor. Other than that, I don't play a lot of RPG's or anything.

Well, my "steal" was used loosely. Like the jacket I tweaked from Tekken.

I use other things to base many designs on, just to get a little bases then I can tweak around with it. Like a character later on will have DBZ hair. He won't look like a DBZ guy, I just thought the hair looked cool =P

I won't steal anything for story purposes, at least I hope I don't. I just use a lot of references in designs.

I like shows like X Files, Star Trek, and Law & Order because they have interesting ways of telling stories and character development. They give me ideas on themes and such I can bring into my story I already have going on.

Also I listen to music to get ideas. Listening to Puff Daddie's "Come With Me" song from Godzilla inspired me to create a Galactic Head Hunter made out of puzzle pieces that just appears ever so often chooses a target and nothing anyone can do can stop him. He sucks them into his staff and their head appears on the staff, thus you "come with him" XD

Other songs inspire scenes or characters for me too since I see everything animated in my head.
Enya is great for this as well.

EVERYTHING

Crap, my posts just inspired stuff for his/her future works >: (

:P
Crap, if he/she reads this post I did it again!

Could be hard to list my influences, I have a lot of them. Here is just my selection of comics that I've found particularly inspiring or instructive, which just keeps on getting bigger:

Runaways,
Scott Pilgrim,
Astonishing X-men,
V for Vendetta,
Bleach,
Cardcaptor Sakura,
Ah My Goddess!,
Naruto,
Shutterbox,
Azumanga Daioh,
Hellsing,
The X-Statix,
Nextwave,
Fruits Basket,
Hellboy,
Chrono Crusade,
Understanding Comics,
Making Comics,
Akira

That's just the print comics. If I stuck webcomics on there, and things that aren't comics, I'd be here all day!

I've had many influences, notably influences from Neon Genesis Evangelion and Hellsing. But I also drew influences from the Mario Brothers flash series by Phantasmagoria Crow, Silent Hill and V for Vendetta.

Just take a look at Anything Goes to see the influence by music. Hell, I was having trouble thinking of a plot for the second chapter, so I just looked on my playlist and saw "Right Next Door to Hell" by Guns n' Roses (Awesome song by the way).

Sci-fi Books:
Ender's game series ( I love how Card makes you see through all the character's perspectives. I want to write like that.)
F451 (I love the conversations and dialogue between the characters.)
Please Save My Earth***(really love this manga. The characters' depth is so overwhelming and interesting I love it.)
Animal Farm ( I liked how the situation slowly evolved into a tragic ending.)
Brave New World (The world development is incredible.)

Movies and shows:
Watership Down (A big influence on the dog eat dog world of Demon Eater.)
Trigun (I like how the humor turns into seriousness. It had a great blending of serious and funny moments.)
Spiderman (90's TV show) (The main character's self narration. An influence on DE writing?)
Gargoyles (TV show) (I don't know just loved that show. The plot flowed really well from scenario to scenario.)
Aladdin (Disney movie and TV) (Just like Gargoyles. This was good too.)
The Lion King (Disney)(The character development of Simba.)
Beauty and the Beast (Disney) (Character development)

It's amazing how many different sources I can find inspiration. Many friends and family have characteristics that inspire how my characters react, or the type of slang terminology they use. Someone may use a funny phrase all the time, and I just HAVE to work it into a comic somewhere. Listed below are more media sources:

comics:
peanuts, C&H, Get Fuzzy, Sinfest, Boondocks, Fox Trot, Pearls vs Swine, My Cage, Zits, Garfield, Doonsbury... God I could go on forever with these types of comics.

TV:
3rd Rock from the Sun, Mork & Mindy, Invader Zim (those shows specifically for Z&F). I absolutely love improv shows like "Whose Line is it Anyway", and I'm sure I take something away from that show. Such brilliance.

Movies:
Emperor's New Groove, Most Pixar films, Triplets of Belleville.. there's probably more that I can't think of directly.

Star Trek.........and um, Star Trek -- oh, and did I mention Star Trek?

Actually, a lot of Due East Book Two was influenced by the whole Ayashi No Ceres anime series (Japanese version, hard to watch the English version)...which is odd because there's no telekinetics, no reincarnation and no excessive bloodshed, but the storytelling in Ceres is tops!

Just by being the age that i am, i think my sense of humor was irreversibly influenced by the Simpsons. I've done some comics that are almost directly inspired by other comics.

Example: http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=0PBF61009BC-Weeaboo.jpg#62 http://www.lastplacecomics.com/comics/88_businesstime_2006.jpg

JillyFoo
Gargoyles (TV show) (I don't know just loved that show. The plot flowed really well from scenario to scenario.)

Ditto on Gargoyles.. Before I became an anime addict, I loved that show.... well, until they started Goliath Chronicles which was thankfully cancelled.
I even but a lame chibi version cameo of Macbeth in my most recent fightsplosion page!

And as I just mentioned... anime anime anime... Ive seen so many different ones from the old to the most new. All of them kinda meld together in my mind so I cant make a list of which influenced me the most, but I will say, that after getting an artbook for Saber Marionette J, I fell in love with Tsukasa Kotobuki.

Smurfs
the Bill O'Riley factor
the A-team
siffle and Olly
late night pbs science show with the bearded guy and weird music
startrek cartoon i saw one time when i was high
NHK kids show with the guys that teach english and look like monsters
That other show on PBS with the talking tugboats and the gay guy
Flying house (where the christian kids an the robot travel back in time to spy on Jesus !
and of course the porno channel when it's all scrammbled (it's sooo mysterious )

Oh yeah I forgot... POKEMON.

All the cute animals and freaky monsters I draw. Pokemon's totally an influence on that.

My current webcomic, Early Game Monster , draws unlikely inspiration from bad Japanese RPG's, Bone, and The Life and Times of Juniper Lee [en.wikipedia.org]; a pretty entertaining cartoon that uses a lot of witty and satirical humor instead of slapstick violence and fart jokes (it's also designed by Judd Winick, one of my favorite comic book artists).

As for anything in general, I cannot get Jhonen Vasquez out of my head. I grew up sneaking copies of JTHM into my house after school but my parents banned me from reading the material once I got my hands on The Bad Art collection. Even if a comic has nothing to do with Vasquez's style (dark and witty), I subconsciously throw in a hidden note or a questionable sound effect.

I try not to let videogames influnce me... generally because they're so terrible. I also think most movies are horribly unoriginal but there's a few gems in the rough.

I've got quite a lot of ideas which were inspired by comics I have read (both online and offline), cartoons, games, movies and even stuff on YouTube, but I only use some of those ideas, at least until I improve my drawing skill. :)